>> hello and welcome to dw's "european journal." coming up in the next half-hour -- life on the edge. how the conflict in syria is affecting turks on the border region. ship ahoy -- what makes the rest of the costa concordia so interesting. and the politics of bird hunting -- why malta tolerates bird hunters. the conflict in syria has been raging for 18 months, and the longer it continues, the more it

affects serious neighbors. turkey in particular has felt the impact of the war. in addition to being flooded with tens of thousands of refugees, turkey has watched formally friendly relations with its southern neighbor deteriorated to open hostility. tensions increased in october when artillery shells fired from syrian territory started landing on turkish soil. several civilians have been killed in these incidents and many more wounded. the turkish military has responded in kind, apparently killing syrian soldiers and raising the threat of international escalation. four turks, living inhe bder regions, conditions had become unbearable. >> this is normally where kids play, but not now. there is no one waiting at home for him when he returns from work. his wife and children have left this border town to stay with her parents in the countryside. he packs a few things together before going to visit them. he misses his kids terribly, but

the sights and sounds of war were too much for them to bear. >> every night, we would go to bed afraid of the next day the next morning, that fear would go on. would something happen again today? the slightest noise would make my daughter cry and say, "dad, there are more bombs." >> despite with these images may suggest, life here is no longer normal. mortars fired by the syrian army have repeatedly landed in residential areas here close to the border. this man lost his wife and three daughters to a major mortar attack in early september. a stng of politicians have since come to offer their sympathies to him and their son, but what the car mechanics wants is action, not words. >> there's a limit to patients. turkey finally woke up after

i say to assad -- surrender power so that the killing will stop and then leave the country. >> the turkish army has since been reinforcing its troop presence along the border and retaliating with artillery fire. the border crossing has been closed for some time. the area has seen plenty of cross-border smuggling at night. not just food and medicine, but apparently also arms. the area directly over the border is controlled by rebels. the syrian government has blamed mortar attacks on them. that is a charge the local ommander denies. >> it was a deliberate provocation. the assad regime is weak and therefore wants to internationalize this war and get turkey involved.

>> the rebels would certainly welcome turkish military involvement on their side. ankara has already committed the free syrian army to treat this wounded in secret makeshift clinics inside turkey. in addition, the turkish red crescent is sheltering more than 100,000 syrian refugees. dascus now sees an, as an enemy. the turks in turn are threatening open war on their neighbor. while the turkish minister of defense gears up for intensification of the conflict, health authorities have been dispatching counselors to border towns and villages. one of them asks a local woman how her children are doing. >> as soon as they hear a bang, they panic. there was a wedding here recently, and the fireworks made them hide behind the sofa. >> they've not slept well in

weeks, explains the father. he has just bought some sedatives from the pharmacy. the government officials give the children a bag of candy to sooth their nerves. the population's problems are worsened by the economic fallout from the conflict. most businesses are now closed. the kurdish community has fled, and there are no more customers from syrian towns over the border. tibia will years before the civil war broke out, ankara and damascus agreed to lift mutual visa requirements, which was great news for the transportation sector. demonstrators from the entire region would come to cross the border arriving in the morning and returning in the evening. we did very good business. >> most of those who can leave the war zone. samir's parents-in-law live 10

miles from the border, is stiff enough distance, he says. there's a machine gun fire or shelling to be heard here, but the family are still very worried. >> we feel safe from the mortars here, but my husband still works by the border. i get worried when i cannot reach him on the phone. >> and politicians said the turkish army would need three hours to deal with the syrians, but here by the border, we prefer to live in peace with the other side. >> but with no end in sight to the civil war in syria, that peace will be a long time coming. >> the wreckage of a capsized boat may not seem very exciting to most people, but if you are an engineering enthusiast or a merchant catering to tourists nearby, then a half-submerged shipwreck can be interesting. we are talking about what is left of the ill-fitted costa

concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground near italy last january. a huge salvage operation is now in full swing. the goal was to turn the ship upright and tow it away in one piece, thereby reducing any risk to the environment. it is a monumental challenge and a source of fascination. >> life seems idyllic in the hidden nooks of the small island. cappuccino on the port, fresh vegetables. >> business has been good this year thanks to the concordia accident. the'seen enoughork. >> the costa concordia. some 1000 tourists a turned up each day since it ran aground here last january. to set the things it is scandalous -- giuseppe thinks

it is scandalous. and it is the same thing morning and night -- all these people taking photos without even thinking about what happened. >> local priest calls -- recalls the accident with a mixture of cheers and laughter. thousands of stranded passengers strip -- streamed into his church after the cruise ship ran aground. he provided them with blankets and even ceremonial robes. >> it was chaotic and freezing in here. our heating has been broken for many years. a lot of people wanted help. i did not know what else to do. >> the cruise company gave him a small statue from the costa

concordia's chapel. it also part -- promised to provide radiators, but these never materialized. the company has other concerns -- the captain who ran the ship aground faces trial for abandoning ship, and a massive salvage a operation is planned. the captain, a south african who used to steer tankers and freighters but now salvages them, will put the bold plan to remove 80,000 tons of scrap into action. the two go to see the wreck every day and discuss the situation. the blocks and tackle have already been attached. the 95-kilo hunk of rock in the hall has been queued into pieces and removed. the whole, however, will stay. the ship however will never again be properly seaworthy. still, it will make one more

voyage. >> with this project, we most of all want to protect the environment. that is why we need to keep the ship in one piece. the plan is to write it and tow it away. >> it would have been much cheaper to saw the ship into pieces and remove them one by one, but i would have been an ugly side and would have led to disputes with local authorities and environmentalists. instead, cables will be fastened into the rock, a tall steel blue is installed, and a platform installed into the bedrock. the ship will be rolled onto a to before it is totally. it is a technical stroke of genius to compensate for the scandal. right now, the plan only works on sloan's computer.

he is currently having 150 mots a drilled into the granite rock. >> you can see these wires are big bundles, 100 meters long each, and that is the size of the issue. everything is very large. when you have cranes, it is very difficult to manhandle. >> a team of 100 engineers and 200 divers are working around e clock, but it will still take at least five months to complete the mammoth task. the costs are mammoth as well. some 300 million euros. and is also a question of salvaging his country's honor. >> i think italy damaged its reputation quite considerably here. now it has to deliver a good example of how such an awful

problem can be solved using the right technology. >> for the moment, nobody knows weather the project will be a success. a storm or forced move could create more damage. the cruise company has employed the marine biologist and his team from the university of rome to look into the impact on the environment and how to mitigate in future. that did not go over so well. emanated not really take us seriously at first. but when we showed them our work, they were convinced. w we are cooperating well. we have to ensure this massive construction site and work with steel and iron creates as little damage as possible. >> the ship owner is spending 1 million euros to monitor the water and the seabed.

andrea also has extensive monitoring equipment. >> this is a very detailed map. you can see the protected see wheatfields and coral banks near the rat. -- the protected seaweed fields and core banks near the reef. >> the plant life is expected to recover while the wreck is moved. the professor personally moved the endangered, noble pinchot's. these huge clams now serve as a bizarre reminder of the damage humankind can unleash. >> some people will do anything to get attention, especially if they are -- if their craving for attention is combined with a mental disorder. such was the case in sweden with

a man known as thomas quit. after spending time on this side to it -- psychiatric ward of a penal institution, he claimed to have been responsible for numerous unsolved murders. the remarkable thing is the swedish authorities believed him. the case of thomas quick is proving an embarrassment to the swedish justice system. emma was addicted to drugs for years. he is mentally ill and a notorious liar. -- >> he was addicted to drugs for years. he is also a convicted serial killer, but there are doubts that he ever killed anyone. his story begins in the early 1990's when he was remanded to a psychiatric clinic after a bank robbery. no one paid much attention to him until he started confessing to murder, and all at once, everybody was listening. >> that had to do with my situation in the clinic. all at once, i was an

interesting patient who provided interesting conversation for the psychiatrists. i could chat with them on an intellectual level. >> once he had everyone listening, he confessed to more and more killings, embellishing them with gory details. the total sum of his alleged victims came to 33. he changed his name, calling himself thomas quit, and everyone believed him. had bn a addic since he was a teenager. therapists started giving him strong sedatives, hoping to extract yet more confessions. at the scene of one of his alleged crimes, the drugs were late in coming, and he snapped. >> the dosage of my psychopharmaceutical had been drastically increased. that made it easier for me to

live. >> for many of the crimes, he seemed to have alibis, but during the trials, no one seemed interested in checking them out. he was eventually convicted of eight murders and sentenced to life, confined to a mental hospital. >> the fundamental problem with the investigation was that there were only three or four people who had a complete overview of all the files. >> this joualist followed the trials. he had had doubts about the evidence and confessions early on. he investigated each murder again on his own and questioned the convicted killer. then he wrote a book claiming that he could not have committed the vicious murders. it triggered a scandal. >> the blame for not having informed the court properly lies

primarily with the state prosecutors. it is their duty to check the evidence objectively and make sure the court is correct information. >> a crt of appeals has since overturned five of the eight convictions. the other three are under review. his overcome his drug addiction and withdrawn his confessions. today he says he made it all. >> it is awful. the victim's parents must have suffered a horrendously when they heard my stories, and my brothers and sisters heard things about our parents and grandparents. >> the case has been taken up by parliament with the opposition demanded a thorough clarification and asking if this thenly cas where sdish investigators failed so miserably. >> there has to be supporting evidence. after all, this is not the first time that an unstable characters have confessed to crimes that

they never committed. >> the case of thomas quick has turned into one of the worst legal scandals ever to hit sweden, not least because it means the murders have still not been solved. >> what is really frightening is that the true murderers have been running around free for years just because and mentally ill man confessed to their crimes. >> the swedish justice ministry has to bear the public pressure until all the convictions have been completely reviewed. a specialist journals publishes an online legal magazine, "justice today." he says the case exposes serious weaknesses in the country's justice system that must be addressed. >> the dispute between the prosecution and defense research to bring up the trip did not take place. the prosecution and defense were

basically on the same side. prosecutor never had to prove his case as the system overseas. bill that is a flaw in the swedish court system, and this case made that very clear. >> now a committee has been called to investigate mistakes and failings the rally and decide what lessons are to be learned. >> i of hunting is your hobby, you know you have to follow some rules. in europe, regulations are quite clear as to what can be shot when. unfortunately, not everybody sticks to the rules. the tiny country of malta has a long tradition of hunting birds. according to author jonathan friends and, it is the most savagely bird-house style place in europe -- according to author jonathan franzen. it happens to be in an import

migratory flyway between africa and europe. unfortunately, many of the birds that are killed are protected species, and authorities have not allocated the resources needed to protect them. >> volunteers from across europe have assembled in malta with plans to disrupt the activities of bird hunters. they work for the german-based committee against bird slaughter, which also supports the local police in their efforts to cut out poaching. >> this aernoon, were sending four teams to places where we suspect birds of prey settled to sleep. we're on the island for a total of three weeks with 32 participants. >> malta has a commitment to the eu bird conservation director, but protected species are still being hunted. this year has again seen tens of thousands of birds fall prey to poachers. >> you can see them already looking where the birds of prey are landing. one guy is already on his phone.

there might be something special landing. yes, over there. >> malta is a stopover for millions of migratory birds. >> i am a. hunter, ok? i hunt what is legal. what is not legal i do not hunt. what is illegal to hunt or to shoot, i shoot it. certain species are illegal to shoot. why? it is not just like that. may be they are endangered species. it is illegal to shoot birds o prey, but you find poachers. i call them poachers, not hunters. >> birds have been trapped and shot for centuries here. malta is said to have the highest concentration for hunters in the world. for many, it is a passion. >> a beautiful body.

they are hunting just like this. >> the administrative law enforcement agency has the task of combating the poachers and ensuring the eu conservation directive is complied with. >> the flora and fauna, from illegal hunting, illegal dumping. >> how many colleagues do you have? >> we are 17 out at this moment. >> do you know how many hunters you have here? >> over 10,000 registered. >> which means the authorities are outnumbered by 1000 to one, daunting odds in this conflict. trying to tip those odds are the conservationists. they face a hostile and sometimes violent reception. >> we know they do not like us,

especially the poachers. they try to make life difficult for us. that ranges from insults to warning shots. a couple of days ago, someone shot close over the heads of one of our teams. we have also faced physical attacks. cars have been completely wrecked. we've had multiple tires slashed. they try to make life as difficult as possible for us. >> this conservationist was hospitalized after an assault. no species is safe from the poachers, say the activists. from flamencos and falcons to hummingbirds and beaters. there seems to be open season on all of them. >> the figures for bird's shot down are extremely worrying. we recently found 15 dead bee eaters, half the population we have in west germany.

>> the european court of justice first found malted guilty of violating the eu birds directive in 2009. >> i believe the eu has a duty to look at this case. the maltese authorities could avoid penalties by scrapping exemptions on hunting and introducing effective patrols. it really is the only way to crack down on poaching in malta. >> local politicians remain deaf to the protests from across the you. with successive governments reluctant to upset the 17,000- strong hunting community, the issue has become a potential election turner. >> the nationalist party, which is the government of the day, and the labor party, always feel that this is a body of the votes, which sometimes has voted

as a bloc, which could lead to their losing the election. bear in mind in malta, elections are won or lost by just 1000, 1500 votes. >> the prospects for an effective ban on bird hunting in malta remain slim. conservationists will be busy for the foreseeable future. >> that is it for "european journal" this week. if you have questions or comments, we uld love to hear from you. our e-mail address is europa@dw.de. or check us out on facebook. from all of us here in brussels, thanks for watching. goodbye. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--